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I know how to be humbled, and I know also how to abound. In everything and in all things have I learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need.
Verse Takeaways
1
The Secret to Contentment
Commentators explain that Paul's word for "instructed" means "to be initiated into a secret mystery." Unlike Stoic philosophers who found strength within themselves, Paul's secret to contentment wasn't self-sufficiency. It was a spiritual truth he learned through experience: true stability comes from reliance on Christ, not circumstances.
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Book Overview
Philippians
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12
18th Century
Presbyterian
I know both how to be abased. To be in circumstances of want.
And I know how to abound. To have an abundance. He had been …
I know how (οιδα). Followed by the infinitive οιδα has this sense. So here twice, with ταπεινουσθα, to be humbled, from ταπεινος, …
19th Century
Anglican
Everywhere and in all things.—The original has no such distinction of the two words. It is, in all and everything; in lif…
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Baptist
I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to…
Paul hastens to make clear that though he undoubtedly had a need, it was not relief of this need that primarily concerned him. He had “learned to b…
16th Century
Protestant
I know both how to be abased There follows here a distinction, with the view of intimating that he has a mind adapted to bear any kind of…
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17th Century
Reformed Baptist
I know both how to be abased; Or "humbled"; to be treated with indignity and contempt, to be trampled upon by man, t…
It is a good work to support and help a good minister in trouble. The nature of true Christian sympathy is not only to feel concern for our friends…
13th Century
Catholic
In his commentary, the Apostle first shows how the faithful should conduct themselves regarding the future. Here, he commends them for the past ben…
